Words
by Yondaime Namikaze
Summary: [SIDE-PROJECT] A collection of one-shots-each chapter is a stand-alone story based on one word. Current story: "Train".
1. This

**Another story for which I have no idea how it came to be. I guess I just thought of it one day while I was working. Each chapter will be based on one word—only one word per chapter. Like my story collection "Songs", each chapter is its own separate and complete work. **

**SUGGESTIONS FOR WORDS (ONE PER CHAPTER, RECALL) ARE WELCOMED!**

**For the first story, I felt it best to start with the obvious…so here it is!**

* * *

This

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was the most unusual Viking that the isle of Berk had ever seen. From the time he could crawl, he had been different…or so was said by all the older Vikings who lived on the island. Physically, the boy was small, much smaller than the normal Viking youth. At first, everyone overlooked this; the boy had entered the world early and had not had enough time to bulk up to the usual size for a newborn boy. As the boy aged, though, they soon realized that the boy was far smarter than any other Viking his age. In a society where brawns always beat brains, boys like Hiccup were frowned upon by everyone who lived there.

As the village youth aged and bulked up in size, Hiccup grew in age, but remained small. It was not long before Hiccup was deemed an outcast among those living in Berk. No one would associate with him for fear of being branded as an outcast themselves. Even his own father, the Chief of Berk, put the village before his own son. The boy never seemed to let these things get to him, though. Despite the deprivation of friendship, Hiccup remained carefree and inquisitive, always on the move and studying the world around him.

Yes, Hiccup was the most unusual Viking ever and that is why he became the twisted punchline to every joke (even if he didn't know it). He would hear the whispers as he walked through the village. It wouldn't be until Hiccup was about aged ten when he would finally learn the whispers all meant.

It was afternoon on a cold and windy winter day when Hiccup, for the first time ever, really stopped to listen to the whispers spoken around him. He had been trying (and, ultimately, failing) to help out his father by sorting baskets of fish at the docks and transporting them to the Great Hall for tonight's dinner. The baskets were filled to the brim and extremely heavy, but Hiccup did not want to disappoint his father—not when he was trying so hard to make the man happy.

Hiccup quickly found that he could not lift the heavy basket so he tried dragging it. All he succeeded in doing was slipping and falling down onto his butt on the cold hard ground. The basket moved not an inch. Undeterred, little Hiccup picked himself back up from the ground and ran to the other side of the basket. _**If I can't pull it**_, he reasoned, _**I'll just have to push it.**_ Slamming his shoulder into the basket, all Hiccup managed to do this time was knock it over and spill the gathered fish everywhere. As if the Gods could not just be satisfied with this, the momentum caused Hiccup himself to topple over the basket and land facedown into the spilled pile of soggy fish. Now, in additional to the shoulder pain, he could not get the nasty stench of fish out of his noise. _**Well…this stinks.**_

Around him, the snickers from the other Vikings working on the docks were heard instantly. Just when Hiccup thought this situation could not possibly get any worse, he picked himself up from the ground and looked across the dock to see his cousin Snotlout Jorgenson laughing about it with his father, Spitelout. _**Great…**_

Father and son walked past Hiccup as they moved to complete some other task. They whispered and laughed between themselves but, as they passed Hiccup, the shunned boy heard every soft word. He pretended (the way that he always did) that he had not been listening, but the words still hurt as he replayed them again and again in his head. "Bulk up, Son. You don't want to end up like…this."

888

Years passed and the words Hiccup had heard on that day remained in the back of his mind, forgotten temporarily with the passing days. The dragon raids continued, becoming worse and worse with each year.

The sounds from tonight's raid had woken 15-year old Hiccup who'd immediately run down the stairs from his room to open the front door and look outside. Almost instantly, Hiccup had to shut the door again as a nearby Monstrous Nightmare noticed and shot flames his ways. "Dragons…" he breathed out, hoping to calm his shaky nerves. Even after all these years, he still grew scared, lacking the bravery all his fellow Viking tribe members exhibited.

As soon as he could, Hiccup slipped out the charred front door and ran toward the blacksmith's shop where he was apprenticed. On his way, he dodged many of the fighting Vikings. How he wished that he could be just like them, but he couldn't lift an axe…or swing a hammer…or throw a bola. He was pretty much useless…just like everyone had been saying since forever.

Arriving at the shop, Hiccup was forced to endure Gobber's quips about his size._** I know I'm small, but becoming a dragon's toothpick? That's pretty low… **_Still, Gobber was Hiccup's father's best friend, but sometimes the blacksmith felt more like a father to the boy than his own.

The shouting of orders from outside caught Hiccup's attention and he leaned out further, watching as the other kids his age rushed by with buckets of water. _**Gods, I wish I could be on the water brigade like them. Their job is so much cooler.**_

Gobber must've noticed what his apprentice was doing because Hiccup felt himself lifted up and away from the window by the back of his shirt. _**Oh, come on…**_ Hiccup pleaded desperately to Gobber, asking him allowance of just two minutes to go out and kill a dragon.

The blacksmith did not oblige and, instead, reminded Hiccup of all his physical flaws. _**As if I needed to hear all this again. **_When Gobber reminded Hiccup (again) that he could not throw a bola at the flying dragons, the boy jumped at the opportunity. "Yes," he agreed, "but this will throw it for me." Hiccup had fashioned this machine to throw bola weapons and he just knew that it would work.

It did work…a little too well. With just one small touch on the wood, Hiccup's creation launched the weapon. Gobber just barely had time to dodge and the bola smacked another Viking right in the face, knocking him out instantly.

"See, this right here is what I'm talking about!" Gobber replied, exasperated.

"Mild calibration issue," Hiccup tried to explain.

"No. If you ever want to get out there to fight dragons, you need to stop all…this," Gobber told him, gesturing to his apprentice.

"You just gestured to all of me!"

"Yes, that's it!" Gobber explained. "Stop being all of you!"

_**I'll show you that I can handle myself out there!**_ "You, sir, are playing a dangerous game…keeping this much…raw vikingness contained. There will be consequences!" Hiccup yelled out, making himself look as big as humanly possible.

"I'll take my chances. Sword. Sharpen. Now."

Gobber dropped a dull sword into Hiccup's arms and the boy almost collapsed under its weight. _**Well that's really helping me to convince Gobber that I can handle myself out there**_, he thought sarcastically.

The sword scraped against the grinding stone and Hiccup steadied it as he'd been trained. _**One day I'll get out there…**_

888

"You get your wish. Dragon training. You start in the morning."

Hiccup wanted to scream out that he no longer wanted to train with the other kids to kill dragons. Earlier that day, he had gazed deep into the eye of the Night Fury he had downed. In the dragon's eyes, he had seen himself—a being that, deep down, was frightened, yet put on a tough front because that was the only way it had ever known.

In a desperate attempt to change his father's mind, Hiccup sprouted on and on about how he'd rather train to be a bread-making Viking or a small home repairs Viking, but his father would have none of it. Stoick dropped a heavy axe into his son's hands and it took all Hiccup's strength to keep from falling to the ground.

_**He's not getting it.**_ "I don't want to fight dragons," he practically whined, but nothing would convince his father.

"Come on! Yes, you do!"

_**Maybe I had, but not anymore**_. "Rephrase. Dad, _I can't kill dragons_!"

"But you will kill dragons!"

"No, I'm pretty extra sure that I won't," Hiccup continued to argue.

"It's time, Hiccup."

"Can you not hear me?"

Clearly not… Hiccup wanted to bury himself as he heard his father tell him about how he, by carrying this axe, would walk and talk and think like the other Vikings.

"No more of…this."

Hiccup rolled his eyes and slumped slightly. "You just gestured to all of me."

"Deal?"

"This conversation is feeling very one-sided…"

"Deal?" Stoick pressed.

Hiccup knew that he had no other answer. With a sigh, he replied, "Deal."

888

As it happened, Hiccup had been right about the dragons. They attacked and ravaged Berk because they were scared. The Vikings had been too dead-set in their 300-year-old tradition to just attempt to figure out why the dragons kept coming back to pillage their land.

Now they understood…and it had only cost Hiccup a leg to make it happen. Hiccup did not know how he had gotten back to Berk from Dragon Island. He just remembered waking up after an unknown amount of time and finding Toothless in his house.

The surprises hadn't even stopped there. Walking (with Toothless's support) to the door, Hiccup had been surprised to find a new Berk, one that welcomed dragons. It was all so surreal; Hiccup thought that he must've died when he had been knocked from Toothless's saddle.

His father had joined him then, giving him a pat on the shoulder and asking for his thoughts on all that he was seeing. Hiccup had no time to answer before others in the village noticed and race up to see him. Never before had they been this excited to see Hiccup; he didn't know how to take it.

"Turns out all we needed was a little more of…this," Hiccup's father spoke again.

"You just gestured to all of me," Hiccup answered automatically. Unlike all the other times Hiccup had heard this word, it no longer felt like a jeer. His father's voice held so much admiration that Hiccup felt overcome with happiness.

Gobber appeared next, revealing that he had created the new leg on which Hiccup now stood. When asked if the leg would do, Hiccup replied simply that he "might make a few tweaks", earning him pleased laughter from those gathered.

The next person to appear was Astrid and she made her presence known with a swift punch to Hiccup's shoulder. Unprepared, Hiccup tripped slightly, crying out more in surprise than pain.

"That's for scaring me," Astrid told him, stating the reason why she had punched him.

"What? Is it always going to be this way, cause…"

Astrid kissed Hiccup, instantly halting his words. The murmurs among the crowd didn't matter. In Hiccup's world, it was just him and Astrid. When they broke apart, Hiccup finished what he was going to say, amending it just a bit. "I could get used to it."

* * *

**This ends story one! Remember that each story (chapter) features a different word and stands on its own. **

**I don't know why this chapter was so hard for me to write. Took me several sittings and I was stuck mostly on the opening. Once it came together, though, it was much easier to get this story written. **

**Also, I wrote this at school, so I did not have a copy of the movie for the later scenes. I did my best, but it's been awhile since I've watched the movie. I'll watch it again on Christmas Eve when it's on TV.**

**Suggestions are accepted! Only one word per chapter, please! **

**Hope you enjoyed and I'll talk with you all again next time. Thank you all for reading and supporting Words!**

**Posted: December 17, 2014**


	2. Train

**I'm back with another story for Words. This story will center on another important word—so important, even, that it's found right in the title of the movie! Hope that you enjoy this story!**

* * *

Train

Training was important. Even the Vikings of Berk—rough and reckless as could be—knew to first receive some form of instruction before racing headlong into a fierce battle.

On Berk, Viking youths entered training as teenagers and left as men (or women) ready to fight the dragons that plagued the village. Well…maybe that wasn't necessarily true. Physically, they were prepared to the fullest extent. Mentally, they still felt like the scared little teenagers that they had been at the start of the training.

Year after year, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III grew and watched class after class of dragon training. Because he had no friends, Hiccup would often spend his days up in the spectating areas of the arena, looking down upon the dragon training classes until his father found him and dragged him away for the area "for his safety". Hiccup did not understand this. He never put himself in harm's way and he absorbed the teachings, watching intently as the classes progressed.

Little Hiccup could not wait until he could finally enter dragon training. Maybe then he would finally prove to his fellow villagers that he had what it took to be a Viking of Berk.

As his fifteenth birthday approached, he heard the talk from the other kids his ages as they excitedly awaited the day they would step onto the arena floor for the first time. Hiccup couldn't wait. He was ready.

888

"You're not ready."

Those were the words Hiccup's father had greeted him with one morning when the fourteen-year-old boy had asked about dragon training. Hiccup, being the stubborn young Viking he was, had pleaded with his father to reconsider, but eventually Hiccup had stormed upstairs in frustration and spent the rest of the day in his bedroom alone.

As Hiccup often did when upset, he eventually sat down at his desk and pulled out his sketchbook. Determined to prove himself, Hiccup set to work crafting plans for a new invention that would help him to succeed during the dragon raids. After much planning, Hiccup had designed a contraption that could potentially work. Loaded with bola weapons, the handler of the machine would be able to fire them with a simple switch of a button. He could not wait to build it and test it out.

888

It had taken almost a year to build his new invention, but Hiccup was confident with the result. Though he knew that Gobber was less-than-satisfied with the contraption and it still had some minor calibration issues, Hiccup felt that it was time to test it out.

The raid that night was an exceptionally bad one. On Berk, four main types of dragons—Deadly Nadders, Hideous Zipplebacks, Gronckles, and Monstrous Nightmares—arrived often to ravage the village. Tonight, Hiccup had seen at least one of each of these dragons. Not to mention, he had heard the familiar screech of the most feared of all the dragons—the Night Fury. Known as "the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself", no Viking alive had ever seen this dragon. Still, Hiccup refused to be deterred. He would find this dragon, bring it down (with his new contraption) and kill it!

Dodging Vikings as he raced through the village square, Hiccup finally situated himself on one of the cliffs high above the village of Berk. With ease, he set up his new contraption and waited. Soon an unsuspecting dragon would fly overheard. Surely, he wouldn't have to wait all night.

That familiar screech sounded overhead and Hiccup perked up. _**This is too perfect!**_

The Night Fury was fast and Hiccup could barely keep it within the target lens he had built into the contraption. Before Hiccup could confidently aim his shot, the Night Fury fired, destroying a nearby watchtower. The shot set off the calibration again and Hiccup's creation fired its bola, sending Hiccup to the ground on the rebound. As Hiccup made to stand once again, he heard a painful screech and watched the shadow fall towards the ground. "I…hit it? Yes, I hit it!" He jumped up and cheered at his rare stroke of success.

The moment was short-lived though as a hiding Monstrous Nightmare decided that the scrawny Viking would make for a nice late-night snack. That was how Hiccup returned to the village and why he was forced to endure another lecture from his father, the Chief of Berk. _**Well, maybe if you'd let me enter dragon training this would stop happening!**_ Even when Hiccup mentioned that he'd managed to down a Night Fury, the villagers just laughed it off. Hiccup knew what the laughing meant. There's no way Hiccup the Useless could down a Night Fury! That's what they were all thinking.

Immediately after Gobber left Hiccup back at the younger's house, the heir set off to the woods to find his downed prize. Mapping out the area, Hiccup trudged through the forest and still began to doubt what he had seen earlier that morning. _**I imagined it, didn't I? There's no way I actually brought down a Night Fury…especially with that shot. **_

That was when he saw it, a large ditch in the ground, fresh, as if something big had recently hit the ground and slid across it, tearing right through the grass. Hope restored, Hiccup followed the ditch and spotted the dragon.

Creeping slowly toward the dragon, Hiccup pulled out his small dagger. His father had never allowed him to have larger weapons for multiple reasons, mainly his size but also his tendency to bring about disasters. This was it! The moment Hiccup had been waiting for, had envisioned for years. Without any training at all, he would kill a dragon and bring its head to his father…or maybe Hiccup would bring the heart. He could determine that later. After the dragon was dead.

Before Hiccup could lower his dagger and bring an end to the dragon's life, the dragon opened its eyes and stared upon him. Making the mistake of looking right into the dragon's eyes, Hiccup felt himself falter. Could he really take a life? It's just a dragon. They'd caused so much chaos to Berk over the last 300 years and this one, the Night Fury, was the most dangerous and feared. This wasn't a Viking. It was a dragon, the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. _**I can do this. I can do this. I can't do this. **_

Lowering his dagger, Hiccup looked at it as he made his decision. Stooping down, Hiccup slid the dagger across the ropes, loosening them one by one until the Night Fury was freed.

In its first moment of freedom, the Night Fury pounced upon Hiccup, cornering the poor young Viking with his back against the rock he had peered over earlier. _**I made a stupid decision again, didn't I?**_

The dragon spared him, though, and Hiccup, in my mind, played back his entire encounter with the Night Fury. It was on this afternoon that Hiccup understood. Regardless of whether he entered training or not, it wouldn't matter; he would never kill a dragon.

888

"You get your wish," his father had said. "Dragon training. You start in the morning."

_**I should have told him. I should have told him.**_ How would his father have reacted if Hiccup had told him about the realization he'd come to just that very afternoon? Besides, Hiccup couldn't stand up to his father. If Stoick the Vast commanded something of you, you obeyed.

That was how Hiccup had ended up here. In the dragon killing arena with the Haddock family axe in his hands. He really did not want to be here. Not anymore. But he didn't have any other choice.

_**It won't matter as long as I don't have to kill any dragons. That shouldn't happen, though. Only one person ever gets that opportunity during training. The best student in the training class. That definitely won't be me, so it should be fine. All I have to do is show a small ounce of interest and let my unluckiness make up for the rest. Blame it on my "lack of ability". This could work. Everything will turn out just fine.**_

888

In the afternoons, once dragon training had finished for the day, Hiccup would disappear to a cove he had found. That cove, he'd learned, was where the Night Fury had become trapped. It could no longer fly due to a missing tailfin and Hiccup felt guilty. That was why he'd created an artificial tailfin, a prosthesis that he could control with the mere flick of his foot. He just needed to convince the Night Fury—Toothless, he had named it—to see him as a suitable rider.

888

The bond between Hiccup and Toothless (who seemed to be starting to accept the name Hiccup had given) grew with each day. By sheer dumb luck, a strange concept for Hiccup, the young Viking learned several tricks about dragons just from his time with Toothless. When he took those tricks back to dragon training, the others were stunned. Hiccup could see their questioning stares and he endured endless questions. What did he do to bring an attacking Nadder to the ground? How did he know to reflect light off his shield to return an intrigued Terrible Terror to its cage? As best he could, Hiccup dodged the questions. He didn't even know how he could possibly answer them? If they knew the real reasons as to how he'd found all this new training knowledge…

888

_**My father…the other fighting Vikings…they're all making a terrible mistake! They did not see the size of that dragon. There's no way they can defeat it with some mere catapults and fire. **_

Still, what could Hiccup do? His father had technically disowned him, stripping him of his title and place within the village. Stoick had taken Toothless on the ships with him. There were no ships left and, besides, Hiccup knew he'd never catch up to the rest of the Vikings before they arrived to Dragon Island.

Hiccup glanced out over the waters when Astrid arrived. Just yesterday, she had hated him for his sudden improvements in dragon training. Then, Toothless had taken them on a nighttime ride, overlooking Berk and eventually accidentally leading them right into the mountain of the evil massive controller of dragons. After that adventure, Hiccup could confidently say that he and Astrid better understood each other.

It was Astrid that pulled Hiccup from his sadness. She reminded him that he was Hiccup and the master of crazy ideas. Honestly, that was definitely the best way to describe this new plan of his.

Gathering all the other Vikings from dragon training, Hiccup led them on a crash course about riding dragons, opening their eyes to something completely different than the norm. The training session was brief, maybe only about ten minutes, but Hiccup had little time as it was. Hopefully, the training would be sufficient for what was to come next.

888

Berk was truly changed by Hiccup's actions. After the demise of the evil dragon queen, the island became a sanctuary where dragons and Vikings could live together in peace. There were positives and negatives to this new living situation, but Hiccup vowed to smooth the rough patches and make it work.

That is the reason why Stoick the Vast chose to dedicate the dragon killing arena to a new purpose. He tasked Hiccup to train his friends and their dragons in the arena, turning the open space into The Berk Dragon Training Academy. Leading the training would not be easy. Hiccup found that out quite early. Still, it allowed him to continue learning all there was to know about dragons. Besides, training was important.

* * *

**This turned out to be way longer than I'd planned. See how important the word "Train" is! Haha. So…I have to find my list of words. I don't remember what the next one is, but when I find the list, I'll write a story about whatever word it is. **

**Suggestions are accepted! Only one word per chapter, please!**

**Thank you all for reading and supporting Words!**

**Posted: January 2, 2016**


End file.
